Lunar lander could involve multinational effort: NASA

Flight International ^ | 07/11/06 | Rob Coppinger

[The Sons of Liberty]

Us yanks should control the moon, Mars and beyond..

Right on! And only ENGLISH spoken there!

[af_vet_rr]

Skylab was a great use of resources (read: efficient, cheap, safe), and was simple.

I'm a big fan of the K.I.S.S. theory when it comes to engineering though - the ISS is the exact opposite of that theory (as is the Space Shuttle).

Interestingly enough, many people I know think the ISS was used to justify the costs/infrastructure of the Space Shuttle.

[af_vet_rr]

I hate to break it to you but the Russians are pretty good at building heavy lift boosters and they have shared their technology with us.

Not only that, but had we kept the Saturn around for just our heavy lift needs, and the Shuttle had been designed to be primarily a people mover, we would be way ahead of where we are at. It's not unreasonable to think that we would have multiple space stations and a true Lunar presence.

Just the thought of the Saturn with a few decades worth of improvements in materials and propulsion systems alone....

[RadioAstronomer]

If we had pushed the X-15 to its logical conclusion instead of cacelling it, IMHO, SSTO would be a reality today. Heavy lift for "stuff", SSTO for people.

All I can say is "just damn". :-(

[MikeD]

No. No. No. HELL No.

I'm working with a Belgian group on a NASA project right now. ITAR is a *nightmare* for international collaborations. I don't want to *think* about how that affects man-rated hardware.

[RadioAstronomer]

Been there - done that - got the tee shirt. Sigh.

[SunkenCiv]

The Russians are lousy at building orbital hardware; and they don't have a heavy lift booster capable of launching the modules of the ISS.

The RS-68 is touted as multichambered and more powerful than the F-1 from the Saturn V, but is basically four engines welded together and sharing some components. Each bell puts out 1/4 of an F-1. I'm not too sure it's in production per se, but is a recent design and has been used to launch quite a few satellites via a Russian-US company I think.

Where the Russians had a good idea is, incremental improvements to engine design (a capitalist sounding idea, doncha think?) and building lots of any design that turns out reliable. They've built the most efficient kerosene burning engines ever developed. The root of the design is the German V-2. There's a Korolev biography that includes a vintage photo of Korolev standing next to a captured V-2 engine.